New Inquiry Variation Class Starships

The Inquiry Class had a poor introduction to the Star Trek Universe in Picard, but it has been developed and innovated on to a point now where it stands well among Starfleet ships of the 25th century.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
00:38 Real Troubled Origins
03:00 Lore Origins
06:01 USS Zheng He
07:35 Specs
10:26 Summary

Star Trek Online developed by Cryptic Studios and Perfect World.
Star Trek Picard/Strange New Worlds/Enterprise/Voyager/Deep Space Nine/Discovery and The Next Generation are all owned by Paramount Pictures/CBS and distributed by CBS.
This Video is for critical purposes with commentary.

[hellfish]

definitely feels like a warship… the Enterprise-F is out there great for entertaining ambassadors and showing off Starfleet’s engineering prowess for strong, defended cruisers; whereas the Inquiry asks the the question: “what if war?”

Given the size of her impulses compared to her hull, she feels like a destroyer

[scottgardener]

The real-world rushed quality can fit in with in-canon logic; it was cranked out quickly to fill fleet shortages, and the emergency involving the Tal Shiar prompted the launch of every available ship from the ship yard where they were launched, with some incomplete and missing things like their registry numbers. Some might have lacked a full compliment of weapons and might have even been included as a bluff to inflate the appearance of numbers. The following Tuesday would no doubt be a pretty busy day for Planet Express.

[FeeriiEekii]

The season 2-3 refit looks so much better.
Funny lifecycle of this ship:
Originally concept art for STO >
eventually used 10ish years later for Picard season 1 >
Cryptic makes a more detailed model for STO and adds some 'missing bits' >
model from STO goes back to Picard season 2-3 VFX people to add more details and further refinement to eventually come full circle and become a pretty good looking ship imho.

[DarthArachnious]

When I first saw the fleet of identical ships in Picard, then Riker described how powerful they were. It made total sense to me. Every time the Borg or the Dominion attack Earth. The Federation scrambles to bring in ships from all over to Quadrant to hold the line. This is why several Admirals have tried to militarize Star Fleet. But now they built a fleet that wasn't made for exploration, no laboratories or Stellar Cartography. Just Phasers, Torpedoes and Shields. Always on standby, ready to deploy to a combat situation. And almost instantly I realized that's not what the writers and producers intended. It was a cut and past job to save time and money.

[mr.headcrab]

I had always thought that the Inquiry Class was a product of advanced industrial replication. With U.P. destroyed, Starfleet could finally upgrade the manufacturing facilities to create entire hulls, with the drive and life support systems only needing a final fitting, or maybe the addition of some non-replicatable components. a monolithic construction like that would be way more structurally rigid, but would be an absolute nightmare to service in the long term. But, when you need a fast, tough fleet for defense, sometimes a stop gap is what you need until you can ramp up production of the better designs. As for the brush bar on the deflector, I assumed it was something to do with protecting the deflector from damage when the shields go down, or maybe damage from planetary landings. Either way, it was removed from later iterations. Great video, as per usual.

[baystated]

I love those wavy decks with windows curving up and over like they were just texture maps laid in a rushed and sloppy manner over the model's curves. I wonder what kind of warped mad fun house haunted mansiony hallways they have inside. A flattened design but not flat floors.

[macklee]

I've just started playing STO and I love it! I really want the Inquiry now.
Riker sold it hard, so it's gotta be good! 🤩

[blacktronpavel]

The USS "Copypaste" wasn't controversial per se... Just the fact that the fleet was 100% comprised of them. There's a great fan rendition where multiple legacy ship types warp in that saves the scene. The easy thing is because this is digitally available (except for limited Blu-ray releases) this can be fixed after the fact easily with more ship models that were used in Seasons 2 and 3. No one would be bothered by this at all.

[chadwickmccarty]

The Inquiry's introduction in the series was spotty but in the game STO I find it performs really well.

[wmlukepriest]

Loving the rapid releases of lore videos recently! Definitely my favorite kind of contact from you.

[AverageBritishNerd]

I really loved the original 'Archer'-class (iirc?) concept by John Eaves, and was a bit sad when the Inquiry showed up and wasn't as curved as the concept. Thankfully, it looks like they've corrected that now, so I'm hoping they'll update/add to the STO model with the new visuals! It's a really solid ship too, with the Miracle Worker abilities and Bridge Officer seating.

[Reepicheep-]

_"This is my Inquiry. There are many like it, but this one is mine."_
It felt like a shipyard had a bunch awaiting refit just floating around, then grabbed whatever crew they had to aid Riker.
We did this in WW2 as well: factory runs nonstop on the original design, then planes/tanks/etc. get taken elsewhere to modification centers for upgrades to latest specs, then on to combat.

[Peregrine]

Yeah, the copy/paste fleet was not a great moment for the ship, but if its introduction is the worst thing about it, I think we can get over it. I have very little issue with the design other than that. The grill deflector is... different. But I can hardly fault them for trying different things.

[Efyhxslm]

In STO I love my Inquiry/Arbiter/Avenger/Fleet Avenger kitbashed ship, looks great, don't see too many like it, and it's powerful as hell.

[Eviltto]

It gives off a definite Galactica vibe. I'm glad they refined it... it's not a terrible design, but it also needs work to fit into the Starfleet style.

[bipolarminddroppings]

Unknown alien species: This Starfleet sounds a lot like a military, to me.

Starfleet First Contact Officer: No, no, no. We are explorers.

Alien: Then why do our scans show 14 phaser banks and 9 torpedo tubes on a ship with a crew of 13?

Starfleet FCO: Well, you see we do a lot of planetary surveying and those phasers are perfect for boring small holes into the surface, heating up parts of the atmosphere, that kind of thing. The fact that they also happen to function as rather effective death rays is a happy accident.

Alien: and the torpedo tubes?

SF FCO: Those are actually for launching drones and probes. I mean yes, they *can* launch a tri-cobalt device that will render an entire solar system uninhabitable for a thousand years, but we would totally never use them for that...

Alien: how do we join?

[RandomTrinidadian]

The Copy n' Paste class starship 😁

[tommyzDad]

0:44: Close to hundreds of years of naval warfare history at their fingertips and they still bunch up their ships. Nothing a cluster of torpedoes couldn't take out.

[lezhilo]

Finally someone who pronounces Zhang He correctly!

[raideurng]

Honestly, it looks almost Klingon in design. Blade-like nacelles, sharp and aggressive angles, dark paneling, oversized impulse engines, and initially lacking a prominent deflector dish.